Rome, April 16th, 2007. Fr. Álvaro Corcuera, LC, general
director of the Legionaries of Christ and the Regnum Christi
apostolic movement, wrote an article about the birthday of Pope
Benedict XVI for the Semanario Alba. We publish the
text below.

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I have had the grace to meet
the Holy Father on several occasions, and I am always
impressed by the intense and simultaneously simple and spontaneous expressions
of his personal love for Jesus Christ. It is a
love that is demonstrated in his words and gestures, in
his greeting, in his external presence and, mainly, in his
way of celebrating the Eucharist. Everything in his person and
his ministry is focused on Jesus Christ.

It is
a love that has taken him to give himself totally
to God’s will like Jesus, who put himself into the
hands of his Father. The Pope explained it to us
in the homily of the Mass for the inauguration of
his Pontificate, in St. Peter’s Square on April 24th, 2005:
"My real program of governance is not to do my
own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to
listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and
the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him,
so that he himself will lead the Church at this
hour of our history".

Another facet of the Holy
Father that attracts my attention is his passion to communicate
to the whole world that God is love, and that
Christ is the first and greatest expression of this divine
love to man. The Pope declares that as Christians, we
much transmit this love with our words and works. Jesus
Christ calls us to be with Him, to live with
Him and to see everything from his love. Our answer
has to be to fulfil the adventure of communicating Christ
to the others.

Whenever I have the happiness to
meet the Pope it surprises me the way in which
he greets each person. He stops, without haste, he knows
to listen, to welcome, to encourage. It is easy to
see the kindness of Christ in his glance. Some years
ago, two seminarians that recently had arrived at Rome looked
for a store near St. Peter, but they did not
find it. They noticed a passingclergyman with a briefcase in
the hand. The seminarians asked him if by chance he
knew where was the store they were looking for. He
kindly gave them directions and he even accompanied them. The
seminarians thanked him. Later they realized that the affable priest
had been Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who, like every day, was
going home from his office at the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith. This is the simplicity and charity
of our Pope. This is the experience of the man
who loves Chist, meek and humble of heart.

The Pope
also teaches and encourages us to love the Blessed Virgin
Mary. Every day prays the rosary in his apartment.. In
Our Lady he finds the Mother who fulfils him of
peace.

We know that the cross that weighs on
shoulders of the Vicar of Christ can be humanly unbearable.
But the Pope Benedict XVI carries it trusting in the
Lord, with the strength that God gives, and looking only
to faithfully fulfil his mission of shepherd following the way
planned by God. Only God will know the suffering of
the Pope. And nevertheless, He is who helps his children
to accept with ease the weight of the cross.

During
the celebration of Palm Sunday at St. Peter’s Square, the
Pope explained to the youth the meaning of following Christ
nowadays: "…it is an interior change of life. It requires
me no longer to be withdrawn into myself, considering my
own fulfilment the main reason for my life. (…) It
is a question of the fundamental decision no longer to
consider usefulness and gain, my career and success as the
ultimate goals of my life, but instead to recognize truth
and love as authentic criteria. It is a question of
choosing between living only for myself – for what is
greater. And let us understand properly that truth and love
are not abstract values, in Jesus Christ they have become
a person. By following him, I enter into the service
of truth and love. By losing myself I find myself.”

Let us follow Christ very united to his Vicar
on earth. It will be the best gift to our
beloved Holy Father for his 80th birthday.